5/18/2009 @ 12:01AM

Obama Must Stop Neglecting India

While it’s possible to be critical–scathing, even–of Barack Obama’s handling of the financial crisis, his stewardship of America’s foreign and security policy has been surprisingly deft. He’s played a cautious, humble hand on Iraq, taken bold steps on Afghanistan, striven manfully to help Pakistan put out the flames that are threatening to burn that place down, and, most recently, made a seemingly inspired choice in his ambassador to China. In all these theaters, he’s shown an ability to see the big picture while keeping a close eye on those pesky little pixels.

But the one part of America’s foreign policy that Obama can be argued to have flubbed so far is its relations with India. Since taking office in January, he has paid India scant attention. India–which for the first time in its history is in a position to regard the U.S. as its closest big-power ally, thanks to the evangelical efforts of George W. Bush–has noted Obama’s froideur. It noted, too, that the one time the American president made an India-related public pronouncement, it was a critical (and fatuous) reference to India’s role in the outsourcing of employment. (On May 4, he criticized the U.S. tax code for–in his view–saying that “you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, N.Y.”)

There are two ways to read Barack Obama’s neglect of India. The first reading–one that gives him the benefit of the doubt that he’s not keen, by disposition, on India–is that he was maintaining a prudent distance from New Delhi as India went to the polls. The country has been in election mode ever since Obama took office, and it may have been the case that Obama was waiting until mid-May to see which Indian government he’d have to deal with. After all, what would be the point in investing diplomatic energy in ties with Manmohan Singh (the prime minister at the time of Obama’s inauguration) if the elections were to bring a different Indian prime minister to power–L.K. Advani, say.

Well, India has now completed its elections, and the results indicate that Manmohan Singh will, once more, be prime minister. The alliance headed by his Congress Party has swept to a stunning victory, and Obama should take note that much of the criticism handed out to the Congress Party by the opposition during the election campaign centered on Singh’s–and his party’s–closeness to America.

In so far as foreign policy matters to voters in Indian elections–and there are indications that it did matter this time, unlike in past elections–the results suggest that India’s alliance with the U.S. is viewed by Indian voters as a broadly good thing. This would confirm the truth of an observation made in an excellent Task Force Report, Advancing U.S. Relations With India–published by the Asia Society in January 2009 and directed by Alyssa Ayres–that “we have at last reached a place where Indians and Americans can see our shared future together.”

The second, darker reading of Obama’s coolness toward India rests on a sense that the president is punishing the Indian political establishment for its closeness to George W. Bush. Given the excellence of India’s relations with the Bush White House–and clear indications from John McCain that India could expect no change in relations if he were to win–it was hardly surprising that New Delhi viewed candidate Obama as the less attractive.

Yet if there is any pique at all in Obama’s approach to India, he needs to get over it fast. The alliance is too valuable to jeopardize. In Hillary Clinton, the president has a secretary of state with a real feel for India. And in James Steinberg, deputy secretary of state, he has a man brimming with ability to handle India policy. (See his speech on U.S.-India relations, made at the Brookings Institution on March 23.) Above all, in himself, Barack Obama has the panache and personality–and, let’s face it, the subaltern appeal of being a non-white president–to reach out to India more effectively than any American president before him.

As Pakistan tears itself apart, America needs India more than ever. The moment, therefore, is Obama’s to seize. As the Asia Society report (above) emphasizes, “India matters to virtually every major foreign policy issue that will confront the United States in the years ahead.” What is significant is that the convergence of India and America rests just as much on shared principles as it does on shared interests, suggesting that if the Indian alliance is nurtured wisely by Washington, the U.S. could find itself with an ally of rare and enduring caliber, one that could come to fall into the category of alliance to which Britain, Japan and Israel belong.

As an Indian who has made his home in the U.S., I say to Barack Obama: Don’t neglect India. Go to India, and go there soon. Or if you can’t leave town, invite Manmohan Singh to stop by. This is an investment of your time that will pay very rich–and very reliable–dividends.

Tunku Varadarajan, a professor at NYU’s Stern Business School and a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, is executive editor for opinions at Forbes. He writes a weekly column for Forbes.